The Future: Tribulation and Millenium

Of all the topics that we have covered our series here on doctrine these two, the tribulation and the millennium, are without a doubt the ones that historically have generated the most diverse range of interpretations and opinions. In this context, “tribulation” refers to the Great Tribulation, a time of great trouble and distress described by Jesus in what is called his Olivet Discourse in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. A “great tribulation” is also referred to in Revelation. Some interpreters also claim a connection with the “seventy weeks” mentioned in Daniel 9 and with various other passages mentioning God’s judgment on the earth.

The “millennium” refers to one thousand years of Christ’s reign on earth, mentioned specifically only in Revelation 20, though, here again, some interpreters read it into other passages. So we can certainly agree that these two topics are Biblical and that at some point in history they will happen (or have happened or are happening, according to some). However, what they will look like and how they will fit together with other events prophesied in the Bible is not explicit. Should these passages be taken literally or figuratively? Can we say with certainty how long each event will last? More importantly, why should we care about them? What is the significance of the tribulation and the millennium?

The Future: The Return of Christ

Welcome! Today we begin the final section of our series on doctrine, focusing over the next four weeks on the future. As we have gone through our series, we have seen again and again that there are some things that are quite clear and uncontroversial, things that are presented quite clearly and explicitly in Scripture, but there are also other areas, other questions, other topics, that are quite the opposite. As we move to begin to discuss future events, it should be obvious that we are moving into areas where there is a lot of uncertainty. Next week Tim has the unenviable task of discussing the great tribulation and the millennium, some of the most uncertain topics of all. The following week John Farmer will talk about the great judgement, and then Fred will close out our series by talking about the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Who knows what the acronym TEOTWAWKI stands for? TEOTWAWKI stands for the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it. Survivalists use this and many other interesting terms. They try to plan for how to survive a civilization-altering event such as nuclear war, a severe disease that wipes out half the population, a complete breakdown of our economic system, an electromagnetic pulse from a weapon or from the sun that destroys electronics and our power grid, a severe natural disaster such as a comet or large asteroid hitting the earth or a super-volcano eruption that leads to something like a nuclear winter, zombies, or the election of Donald Trump as president. I’m kidding on the last two. See if you can guess what some of these other acronyms stand for:

The Church and Body Life: Sound Doctrine

You are unique, just like everyone else.  I’m especially “unique.”  I think Miriam is amazed at my “uniqueness.”  I think I probably ooze “uniqueness.”  For example, I have a special gift of remembering people’s email addresses, home addresses and phone numbers.  I’ve sent prayer letters to friends and family for many years.  I can remember a lot of their addresses.  When I run into a student on campus that I’ve forgotten to send an email to I’ll say, “Is your email firemonsterbreathingbunny45678@gmail.com?”  They look at me with an astonished look.  I know they must be thinking that I’m very “special.”  Or they’re thinking that I’m a stalker.  Miriam will say to me, “How do you do that?”  It’s a gift.  Now, I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning or what I wore yesterday but I can remember all that other stuff.  Go figure.

While there are some special abilities we have that God created us with, there are also spiritual gifts that God gives to individuals after they become Christians.  The ability to read well, retain details, perform math problems, or any other mental or physical strength is something God usually gives a person from birth (although that doesn’t mean that God is limited in giving such abilities to a person later on in life, like when He heals a disease or some kind of physical weakness).  On the other hand, the spiritual gifts that God gives are given for the sake of edifying other believers, progressing the Gospel, and glorifying God.  I’ll talk more in a little bit about the details of some these gifts, but first, I would like to show how the Spirit has been working through people throughout the whole Bible.

The Church and Body Life: The Lord's Supper

Welcome! He is Risen! (He is risen indeed!) Today we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. There is no greater miracle, no more important event (perhaps other than Creation) in the entire Bible. The resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our faith. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we know that we can trust everything He ever said, that through believing and trusting personally in Him, we can be forgiven of our sins and have eternal life.

I have recently been looking into wills and trusts for our family. We have a will, but we have not updated it in many years, and there have been many changes to our family and our possessions since then; as a result, we are long overdue in going back and, really, starting over, asking the big questions about what we want to happen when one or both of us is gone.  As I have thought about this personally, I have been surprised by the intensity of the emotions I feel specifically in wanting things to be arranged as much as possible for Mimi if I should precede her in passing on to the “better country” as C.S. Lewis puts it. I can imagine the stresses of having to deal with all the accounts, government agencies, decisions, and so on, on top of the stresses of the loss itself, and I greatly desire to ease things, to set things into place in advance, as much as I can while I still can. The thought of not being there for Mimi to help her brings on unique emotions, emotions I find hard to even name.

This has made me think of Jesus. He loved His disciples and friends (and by extension, us) infinitely more than I could ever love my wife or children. But He too thought about leaving them behind. Everything comes to a head at the last supper. I want to go through some of the account of it starting at John 13:1.

The Church and Body Life: Baptism

Good morning and welcome!  We’re now in a new phase of our Sound Doctrine series.  Let’s look at the overall sections.  We began the series back in the fall covering topics like the Bible as our authority about the things of God.  We moved on to talk about what the Bible says about things like God’s Nature, His Creation, us, humanity as the pinnacle of His Creation, Jesus and what He has accomplished for us.  Our previous segment looked at the affect that our salvation in Jesus has on us in several topics on Redemption.   As evidenced by the number of sermons devoted to the topic, the heart of this series on doctrine is Jesus, and what He accomplished for us when we are redeemed through faith in Him.

Now, we are in the section on the church and body life.  Tim taught last week on the true church.  He mentioned how our church is part of an association of churches.  This association is called Great Commission Churches.  We are connected to other churches through this association, and it is organized regionally.  There is a high degree of autonomy or independence in the Great Commission Churches.  One way that we have independence is in how we choose what series we teach on whether topical or expositional (that is from a book of the Bible).

The Church and Body Life: The True Church

What do you think of when you picture a “church”? Do you think of a tidy, white building with stained glass windows and a steeple? Or do you think of something grander, like a cathedral? We tend to associate “church” with a building, in a certain location. But the building itself really has no significance. “The true church” must refer to more than a building. Some churches don’t even have buildings. Or they have very ordinary buildings. Our church building here, for instance, is nothing special. It wasn’t even built as a church originally.

Redemption: Death, Resurrection, and In Between

We are in the heart of our series on Sound Doctrine.  If you’re new to the series, you may be wondering why are we talking about doctrine?  Or where are we in the journey?  Or maybe even, what is doctrine?

The word doctrine comes from Latin roots and means “teaching”.  In the context of Christianity, a doctrine is a teaching of what the Bible has to say about a particular topic.

The title of the series alludes to Titus 2:1, which says,

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine.  Titus 2:1

The “however” comes from warnings Paul wrote to Titus in chapter 1.  People inside the church were teaching unsound doctrine, and it was having strongly negative effects on the church.  This kind of thing happens still to this day.

Redemption: Persevering

I’m glad each of you persevered in showing up to hear this teaching this morning.  I know that it was God who was at work both willing and working for His good pleasure.    Which of the following statements are true?   

1. A person is given eternal life when their physical body stops living and their spiritual body enters heaven. 

2. Those who have been chosen by God have been given the Spirit of God.  The presence of the Spirit of God is proof that they will not lose their salvation.  

3. Some of Jesus’ disciples didn’t experience salvation even though they were chosen by Him.   

Redemption: Growing in Likeness to Him

When I first heard about this topic, I was excited, because I thought it would be interesting to talk about. When I started making some notes, however, I was dismayed. I realized what a huge subject this is – like maybe half of the New Testament. I started thinking about all that could be said about spiritual growth, about sanctification, about Jesus as our example. Wow, how to narrow this down?

One of the challenges is that this phrase, “Growing in Likeness to Christ,” does not actually appear in the Bible, so the first thing we have to do is decide what it means – in the absence of a specific biblical context. The Bible does have plenty to say about spiritual growth, what it means to mature as a Christian, in terms of our understanding and experience of God. However, the title might sound like growing in holiness, which brings up the subject of sanctification – the process by which we are made holy. This can muddy the waters a bit, because sanctification is something of a paradox, as is predestination, which is what we were talking about just before I left on my trip. The reason sanctification is tricky is because there are two ways (some say 4 ways!) of looking at it. On the one hand, as believers in Jesus, we have been made holy, once and for all by the atoning death of Jesus on the cross. We have been clothed in his righteousness. When God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Jesus, not our sin.

Redemption: Justified & Adopted

Good morning!  Today, we have a couple of fun topics.  I say fun because both of them are good news, extremely good news.  We are going to talk about how when we have placed our trust in Jesus we are justified before God and also how we are also adopted into the family of God.

Let’s take a moment and pray again before we get started.

Lord God, thank you for how you set things right between us and You.  You did all the work.  “Nothing was done that You did not do Yourself.”  We are justified not by our works but by Yours.  We are not adopted because of any ability or talent we possessed.  We are adopted because You chose us to be Yours.  Help us to marvel, rejoice, and be refreshed today in what You have done for us.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.